Happy Birthday!!

Emma will be one year old in two days, on May 26^th. They tell you to enjoy every second of it because it goes by so fast ... and they are so right. The last year went by so fast. It seems like just a few weeks ago we were taking her home, waking-up an infinite amount of times at night to feed her, change her and comfort her.

Since her birthday is on a Thursday and we wanted our families to be there to celebrate her first birthday, we had her official birthday party on Sunday. The theme was easy to choose. Actually there was no choosing at all, she wouldn’t have accepted anything else, it HAD to be Mickey Mouse. She has an unconditional love for Mickey. You should see her face lit up and her feet start moving when she hears the intro of any of Mickey’s song.

First, we needed a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse themed cake. We asked Jennifer at Dimps Custom Cakes to make one that would also include a Cheerios box as one of the figurines, since she gets as excited at the sight of Cheerios as she does for Mickey.

Second, we had to find Mickey Mouse Clubhouse decorations and download the theme songs from itunes.

Third, we had to find a memorable birthday outfit. One Minnie Mouse onesie and one tutu later we were all set. I had the tutu made by Jessica at Happy Hippo Boutique and prayed to get it on time, which I did! Phew!

It was a beautiful day, we had our close family and Emma’s godmother present. We played some Bocci ball while waiting for the birthday girl to wake-up from her nap (you do not, under any circumstances wake-up a sleeping baby). She was super happy to see everybody. When we started the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse theme song she was so excited! She was perplexed by the sight of the cake. It was so beautiful that it didn’t even look like a cake. It took her a few minutes to try to grab Mickey from the cake and attempt to eat him. We cut her a big piece so she could dirty her face with it but she’s a neat eater and didn’t make too much of a mess. Still, she ate the whole thing!

All and all it was a memorable first birthday, filled with happiness and lots of Mickeys.

Dandelions

When I was a child, I loved dandelions. What’s not to love about them? They are bright yellow and usually when there’s one, there’s a bunch of them.  As far as I know, every child loves dandelions.

I stopped loving them in May last year, when I discovered that the front lawn of the house we had moved in the previous fall had a serious dandelion problem. But then I was 8 months pregnant, swollen and unable to do anything about it except nurture my growing hatred for them.

Anil had started removing them, one by one, but after a few weeks of weed pulling, the early arrival of Emma stopped our (but mostly, my) dandelion killing-spree frenzy.

I had forgotten about my dandelion problem until a few weeks ago when they returned with a vengeance...

 

The funny thing is the problem only exists in our front lawn. The back is (almost) dandelion-free!

The other “funny” thing is that I’m the only one that seems to have the dandelion curse. None of my neighbours have them on the front lawn. You can clearly see the line of where my neighbour’s lawn starts!

I was never a “lawn-kinda-person”. My mother thought dandelions were pretty and always let them spread when I used to live at her house. Now that I own a house and am about to go berserk with my hatred for weeds, I found myself visiting the hardware store and bought all the tools necessary to win the turf war happening on my front lawn. I am fully equipped. I will not rest until my lawn no longer looks like it has been taken over by yellow invaders.

To be continued...

Mother's Day

My dear sweet baby,

Today is my first Mother’s Day as a mother. Thanks to you, I now know what it is to be a mother and to love somebody more than anything. Your arrival in our lives has turned my world upside down and made me a better person. I’m so grateful and proud to be your mother.

Love always,

Eve xox

Emma is such a good baby! She gave her mama a rose for mother’s day and took her out to lunch at our favourite baby-friendly breakfast restaurant. The waffles were amazing.

I have the best mother in the world! She gave us everything that she possibly could. She is always there for us and I wouldn’t be where I am today if it wasn’t for her. I also have an amazing grand-mother. She, also, was always there for me. I’m so happy that Emma gets to spend quality time with her great-grand-mother and grand-mother. In order to celebrate our happiness of being together, all four of us had lunch - four generations of love. I can only hope to be as good of a mom as my mother is, and give Emma nothing but the best.

Bruins Cake

Anil is a hard-core Boston Bruins fan. Yes, I know, we live in Montreal. He takes his love for the Bruins (and hatred for the Montreal Canadians) to the level beyond my understanding. For you non-hockey fans, it’s the Stanley Cup playoffs right now and the Bruins are doing pretty good so Anil is wearing is Bruins Jersey all day long and Emma is rocking the “Little Bruins Fan” bib.

His birthday is next week but we were having a birthday BBQ today since his brother will be gone to Dubai next week (Yes Erwin, I’m looking at you). I wanted to make a special birthday cake, even though cakes are far from my speciality, and I chose to attempt a.... Bruins cake!

It was quite an adventure, I had to find a store that sold black icing, borrow cake pans and a cake decorating kit, figure out how to make the “B” without it looking like it was on crack. Ouf!

Conclusion: it was amazing! Emma had cake for the first time and she agreed: her mama makes the best cakes in the world!

Alphabet

A few weeks ago, I had a photo assignment (as part of my photography group) consisting of “trying to take a photo of objects that start or represent each letter of the alphabet”. I had so much fun doing it that I decide to do it again! I couldn’t do the letter “x” since I didn’t have a xylophone handy but I got all the other letters down.

Enjoy!

A is for Anil

B is for Bathrobe

C is for Catamaran

D is for Dog

E is for Emma

F is for Flower

G is for Giraffe

H is for Hood 

I is for Iguana

J is for Jeannine

K is for Kyra

L is for Ladder

M is for Mug

N is for Nap

O is for Ocean

P is for Pyramid

Q is for Quay

R is for Rings

S is for Shoes

T is for Telephone

U is for Uncle

V is for Vacation

W is for Winter

Y is for Yellow

Z is for Zen